Laverne Cox narrates illustrated video on history of transgender rights

(Screenshot via YouTube.)

Laverne Cox narrates the history of the transgender civil rights movement in an illustrated video in collaboration with Time and the ACLU.

The video is a collaborative effort from “Transparent” producer Zackary Drucker, artists Molly Crabapple and Kim Boekbinder and Cox.

Cox gives a brief history lesson on the transgender activists who have paved the way for the leaders of today accompanied by illustrations.

“Even when they were criminalized by anti-cross dressing and anti-loitering laws, our trancestors including Miss Major, Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Flawless Sabrina survived,” Cox says. “They all spent time in jail because they dared to be themselves when our society made it a crime to deviate from gender norms. But time marched forward, and so did they, passing along their survival strategies.”

In an article from Time, Chase Strangio explains that the video’s timing is aligned with President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban transgender people from the military and the bathroom bills springing up in the country.

“Without accurate information about trans people, our lives and our rich histories, the impulse to push us out of public life will continue. But we continue to tell our vivid, vibrant and critical story of trans resistance. Time marches forward, and so do we,” Strangio writes.